Location always matters!

This image has a lot to do with geograpy because of where the pig placed his new home. Location is key when deciding where to place a building or home. If a new mall is being built they want to make sure they put it in a popular area where people are like in a city. In this example the pig placed his home right next to a sausage factory where this factory could use him to make sausage. He probably should have built his home in an area away from the factory like in a neighborhood.

The system works fine as is. Maybe down the line, when it would be far easier to quickly change the global coordinate system, this thing would be feasible. Now, though, it would needlessly entail a huge amount of labor. Just think of all the PRINTED materials which could cause confusion. You would have to change out EVERY chart on EVERY seagoing vessel in the WORLD. That, all by itself, is an enormous task, and in some areas would be economically prohibitive. Charts are NOT cheap. In the future, when everything is linked up and digital, it would be much easier. Now it would be a disaster. Some people don't think things through.

Energy Information Administration - EIA - Official Energy Statistics from the U.S.

This goes nicely with the carbon footprint data that was recently posted. Although that was data aggregated at the national level and this is on the 'world realms' level, many of the same patterns are visible without the same specificity.

This map shows World trends in age-standardized mean Body Mass Index (BMI) 199 countries over 28 years. The worldwide prevalence of obesity has nearly doubled since 1980, according to a project that tracked risk factors for heart disease and stroke.

Scientists model where and when the debris from the March 2011 Japanese tsunami will be. The likelihood that the debris (not radioactive) will reach the U.S. west coast is increasingly likely. Look at the great video attached to the article.

Although it's important to know where all of this trash is headed, this just makes me think of how we might prevent this. We can't prevent these catastrophic natural disasters, but how might we lessen it's effects on our cities and settlements? Furthermore, how might we lessen our impact on ecosystems during these times of catastrophe?

It's only called a catastrophe when it hits human populations for a reason, it's not just devastating to us. Remnants of our lifestyle are carried far and wide, able to cause harm on many other species.

An example of how even without considering globalization the world is interconnected. The debris from the 2011 tsunami was never disposed of effectively and the United States may be effected more than they ever expected. If this pile of debris reaches US shores it will make many Americans consider how a tsunami across the globe will eventually hurt them at home.

Do you want to use GIS but don't have the budgetary support to install expensive software? Don't know where to start? QGIS is a free, open-source GIS that is a nice option for schools operating on a limited budget that still want a full GIS platform.

Here is an excellent set of video screencasts that are an introduction to what GIS is, using the QGIS software: http://linfiniti.com/dla/ . This site also has sample data, tutorials and worksheets.

Many small city governments without the budget to run proprietary GIS software use QGIS and here is a repository of QGIS resources including blogs, forums, tutorials and user manuals: http://www.townshipgis.org/resources/qgis ; An excellent blog with QGIS tutorials is: http://qgis.spatialthoughts.com/

This is a great interactive feature focusing on the differential impacts of the economic downturn on particular places. You can zoom in, see county-level data, and slide the time bar at the bottom to get spatiotemporal data.

How Facebook connections mirror old empires EIGHT years ago Facebook launched as an online social network connecting a small college community from a dorm room at Harvard University.

These graphics show how in a post-colonial world, former colonies are still socially intertwined in a cultural network that mirrors the empires of yesteryear. Why are these modern social networks so similar to imperial patterns? What economic explanations are there for these patterns? What is the cultural impact?

This cartogram shows the distribution of one major fast food outlet brand (McDonalds's). By 2004 there were 30,496 of these McDonald's worldwide with 45% located in the United States. The next highest number of these outlets are in Japan, Canada and Germany.

The world average number of outlets of this one brand alone is 5 per million people. In the United States there are 47 per million people; in Argentina and Chile the rate is a tenth of the American rate; the rate in Indonesia, China and Georgia is a hundredth of the American rate. In all the territories of Africa there were only 150 outlets: mostly in South Africa. What does this say about consumption, economics, development, globalization and branding? Search http://worldmapper.org for more excellent cartograms.

We all love chocolate. We all love diamonds and jewels. In western worlds, these items are easily come by in grocery stores and elsewhere, but what got them there was a challenge. People in poorer tropical regions around the world worked to get the raw goods of these delicate items we all enjoy. The payout difference is immense from cocoa to chocolate. It is sometimes a very crooked market where if it wasn't for the hard working people who get the raw ingredients, chocolate as we know it wouldn't be the same.

Fifty million to 200 million years from now, geologists expect Earth's continents to smash together into one big supercontinent, just as they've done repeatedly in our planet's distant past — and a new computer model suggests that the Arctic Ocean...

This graphic displays the fluidity of the plate tectonic systems, and instead of thinking about what happened during the era of the dinosaurs, looking into the future provides an interesting perspective the dynamism of Earth systems (Disclaimer: this is one possibility on what might happen, there are other possible outcomes). In human geography, I use this map to discussion the concept of region: regions are not static, but the the Earth is put together is (sometimes literally) shifting beneath our feet.

The continental drift shows that 225 million years ago, Africa, Asia & Europe, North America and South America were touching while Antarctica and Australia were really close to those 5 continents. These 7 continents together were known as Pangea. 125 million years later North America, Africa and Europe elevated north in terms of latitude but to sum it up, North America, South America, Africa and Europe all drifted north in the world. Let's jump ahead 50 million to 200 million years from now. North America, South America, Europe and Africa can quite possibly all drift northward. As for Asia, the only difference between 225 million years ago and now is that Asia drifted east and barely drifted north. Also, I feel that Australia will barely make it to the equator since it barely drifted northward throughout the past 225 million years.

This video models how to conduct a lesson in urban geography using ArcGIS online (produced by the ESRI education team). Specifically, this exercise examines the spatial context of the 10 most expensive streets in the USA.

The Spatial History Project at Stanford puts together some fantastic geovisualization that is an awesome site that allows you or your kids to spatial and temporally the diffusion of Nazi concentration camps. It has some clickable 'GIS-like' layers to help students contextualize the data and to make some important interdisciplinary connections. Originally spotted on http://ushistoryeducatorblog.blogspot.com/

This map answers a few simple questions: How far away is the nearest McDonald's? Where is the concentration of McDonald's highest or lowest? While population density is the immediate pattern that we identify, what else can this map show us?

A great and entertaining way to explain this part of Europe. I know I have in the past used the terms England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom to all refer to the same thing. It was also amazing to see that people are the same everywhere in that the people in Wales do not consider themselves British, much the same way the people in Sicily consider themselves Sicilain and not Italian.

As an outsider looking in the concept of the United Kingdom is a little confusing. We are taught to view Scotland as its own country, but they are countries within a larger structure. This video makes what would confuse many Americans and condenses it into a clear video that is just about 5 mins.

Many people often interchange the UK, Great Britain, and England, but in reality, they all describe different different things. The UK is a country of four countries, each with equal power, including Scotland, Northern Ireland, England, and Wales but they are all considered British citizens.UK is a political term, describing a country. Great Britain is a physical geographical term describing the land mass containing Scotland, Wales, and England. The British Isles refers to both Great Britain and the Island of Ireland. All of these terms describe different things, being characterized by either political affiliation or geographic characteristics.

What is considered a good play or a bad play in most sports is situational and depends on context. One of the many contexts in basketball that determines that constitutes 'a good shoot' is where you are on the court in relation to the hoop. In essence, this is a spatial factor, and spatial analysis is critical to informing sports strategy and a geography professor did just that in this study. In this month of March, mentioning sports in a geographic context might help students see how spatial analysis matters is a wide range of subjects.

What seems like a good shot to you might not technically described as a good shot. Where you are in comparison to the basket will determine whether it is a good shot or not. whether or not you are squared up facing the basket when you shoot is a factor on how consistent your shot will be.

With over 800 games and quizzes on this site with varying skill levels, there is something for everyone here. Some are standard quizzes such as "European Countries" or "Asian capital cities." However some get you to reorganize your global knowledge in ways you've never considered. For example, What is the most populous city in the world for each given time zone (not that easy right)?

As follow-up to an earlier post about how we have enter the age of the Anthropocene, this stunning map is a fantastic visual representation of the forces that merit the dawning of a new geologic age. This map depicts the lights at night, major roads, railways power lines, oversea cables, airline routes and shipping lanes. It also expands the areas according to population size. For more on the production of this map, see the Globaia website: http://globaia.org/en/anthropocene/

The 2012 election are showing again some of the cultural, political and economic divides that exist in the United States. This above map portrays the 2008 presidential election, with counties that voted for McCain in red and Obama in blue. Rick Santorum has said, in reference the political map of the United States today, "Think about it, look at the map of the United States...it's almost all red except around the big cities." Rick Santorum, by taking on “blue” big cities, is also criticizing the Republicans, his own party. This political portray is an attempt to accentuate the difference between rural and urban America to hit his key demographic, but it also begs for further analysis into the electoral geography of the United States. As some social media skeptics have retorted, "It's all blue except where nobody lives." Which is it? What do these patterns say about United States politics? Why do these patterns exist? For more maps that shed light on the spatial voting patterns from the 2008 election, see: http://www.scoop.it/t/geography-education/p/462087007/2008-election-maps

Senator Santorum has made a good point here. For years his party (and even the other) have been redistricting their states in order to gain advantages in state elections. It has been common knowledge which areas are leaning red and which are blue. Yet nobody seems to be trying to strenghten their base in weaker areas. One thing that would've helped immensely is if the Republicans had strengthened their support among immigrants and African Americans. They heavily populate these urban areas that Republicans need support in in order to strengthen their base.

While looking at this map in class, and then various other maps it is interesting to look at the correlations between the geography of the area and the way they voted. For example, the cotton belt votes democratic, which would make sense given the history behind the location.

This picture explains how political development and parts of America have come to understand and define elements of the world's own cultural backgrounds of urban and rural development. The picture shows that the urban areas are developing in the way of republicans.

This picture relates to unit 4 because it shows how the geography and urban development creates a dividing line of politics and governmental work in the area of rural area to convert to the political status of the urban areas.

This provies the basic overview of the layout and function of http://geteach.com . The video unlocks some great features that are not intended to be hidden, but many first time visitors tend to miss.

This is a phenomenal site, designed by an AP teacher to bring geospatial technologies into the classroom in a way that is incredibly user-friendly. This site allows you to use Google Earth with clickable layers. With multiple data layers of physical and human geography variables, this interactive globe puts spatial information in powerful, yet fun, student-inspired platform.

nat geo programme about the coke factory and the manufacturing process of coke...

Where is Coca Cola produced? Some products are bulk losing some are bulk gaining in the manufacturing process. Coca Cola and their containers represent bulk gaining products. Although not the focus of this video, what is the geography behind where these factories are located? How would this geographic pattern change if this were are bulk losing industry? What are examples of bulk gaining and bulk losing industries? Why are glass bottles not manufactured in the United States?

"The video displays the maufacturing and distribution of the Coca Cola product globally. Goal is to put Coke in all hands and they need ultimate factories for distribution. For non-alcoholic beverage market Coke is number 1. They produce 800 servings a day and Coke does about 670 billion dollars in sales a year. There recipe is the best kept secret, they use words like natural flavors that help keep the recipe a secret. Logistics, cheap labor, and cheap transportation are key to maximize every dollar. "

I can't believe how much money this company makes in a single year. The people in this country must have some serious kidney stones lol. But on a serious note, this company definately has a good strategy on how to minimize cost transportation, because to transport 4.5 million servings that Coca Col makes in a single day, let alone, a year, must be quite expensive and time consuming. Not to mention that they distribute their products in 206 countries, they legit serve 99% of mankind. No wonder they make $670 Billion.

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